What Is Enlightenment?
(Scene: two men pause by the allegorical roadside. They stand having a heart to heart chat about pedestrian things. They swap billion dollar ideas that neither one of them has any intention of pursuing. They gossip about the membership. Then they get to talking about the Mentor Program.)
BOB
Ya know Joe, there’s something I have been meaning to tell you. It’s about you and why nobody gives you feedback about the ideas you write about.
JOE
Please, speak whatever is upon your mind.
BOB
Let’s take this Mentor Program idea. You bring an idea worked out to such levels of detail upon detail that, if somebody like me even reads it in the first place, I end up feeling like there’s no way for me to even get in a simple idea.
JOE
For example?
BOB
You keep talking about us old timers mentoring those who are beginning to enter the workforce. What about us old timers mentoring one another? For example take me and Slim. There’s things Slim knows such that I’d like to have Slim as my Mentor. He’s got plenty of things to teach me that I want to learn. Slim can be my Mentor and I can be his Affiliate. Just a simple idea like that feels like it has no place in your Mentor Program framework. You appear to have everything worked out to the nth degree.
JOE
Every human in the Mentor program is a registered Affiliate. You are both Affiliates. If you want Slim for your Mentor just ask him. I am sure he’ll agree. He’ll help you define a 24Hour work product you can produce and deliver.
BOB
There’s something else I have been meaning to tell you. Years ago a good friend of mine and I pondered the question “What Is Enlightenment”. Most people think enlightenment is some mystical state brought on by meditation. For me enlightenment is no more complex than my daily ritual of letting go of thoughts and feelings that are burdening my soul. For me it is the simple daily enlightenment of the soul. I made my peace with the question “What Is Enlightenment” years ago. So how is it for you?
JOE
Guilty as charged. I have this whole theory about the human necessity to program itself with frames of reference for dealing with life. The theory is complete with mathematical, visual, and linguistic voice and song models of how the soul interacts with the body and how the soul interacts with other souls and how the body forms bonds of love in the brain and had best spend its life hanging onto the bonds of love and letting go of the bonds of hate. Things like that. Dad and I used to talk about topics like this.
